Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 12:50 am
Karl Urban is in for all of one scene. I get the distinct feeling they're trying to strike out the last movie and make you forget it happened because it was so shitty. They overcompensate and take you back to a less entertaining version of Pitch Black.
The cast:
No one you've heard of except maybe Bokeem Woodbine and Dave Bautista (MMA dude) playing goons and Katee Sackhoff (non-Dirk Benedict Starbuck) playing the white Michelle Rodriguez goon, complete with an in-your-face lesbian attitude. There's also a former breakdancer, Mark Vincent, who has the prominent role of "dude getting hit on by lesbian."
I'll break this into 3 acts:
1) the dog
The was my favourite part of the flick. Shows how the Necromongers half-assedly fuck him over, leave him for dead, and don't finish him off ... again. There are also the introductions to the local fauna. The major part I hated here was the goddamned hyena-dog which Riddick adopts. Someone remembered the one scene from Chronicles of Riddick when he was in the slam during feeding time and said, "Yeah, we need more of that. WAY more."
A planet devoid of civilized life, full of exceedingly hostile critters and untamed wilderness. Enter Riddick, the hyena-dog whisperer. Fucking may as well have hung a bullseye on its back or named it "Kill Bait." It artificially humanizes him and provides CGI shinies to distract the audience in lieu of a plot or something interesting. And you know it's going to be the fucking thing that gets him caught at some point in the future.
The buildup to killing the bipedal scorpion things (which I will refer to as "biscorps") was cool, although gets cheapened as the film goes on. I also find it hard to believe that pool was blocking the sole and only way to get to where the grass was greener.
Why isn't Riddick keeping supplies of venom to tip his blades with?
2) the mercs
The two parties of mercs that show up ... Jesus Christ, the first was was amateur hour.
Santana has the Bible kid cut the rape doll loose only to snipe her from a distance instead of putting a bullet in her head up close ... why?
Speaking of Santana, what a fucking stupid character. You're almost looking forward to Riddick carving through them when the more interesting mercs arrive -- Big Daddy Johns, Katee, and their crew.
There's a sequence where the dudes are arguing whether or not Riddick doctored the explosive lock. It's semi-hilarious how they all stand around trying to figure who's going to open it. I have vague memories of D&D sessions where we'd argue for ten minutes over which sorry bastard got to open the chest in front of us.
You have to wonder how the fuck Santana ever recruited a crew or commanded respect. His men have to figure out their leader is batshit insane. At one point, Riddick jacks their ships' powercells and is literally the only one on the planet who knows where they are. This doesn't stop Santana from trying to collect on the bounty (double if returned dead). His attitude doesn't change when there's a legion of biscorps that marches on their position. Big Daddy Johns, seeing reason, starts undoing the chains on Riddick. Santana's men get the jump on Johns's and he tries again. I cannot fathom why anyone in that room is trying to kill their only ticket off the planet.
It's at about here where the writing goes off the tracks.
3) the escape
There are a number of things in this act that give me pause. Someone phoned this part of the script in, possibly holding their real writers hostage.
Santana's death is so over the top, it's comedic. On the flip side, you have to remember his men are implicitly supporting his actions because they have guns drawn on the dudes trying to stop him. Their reactions just make no fucking sense. Do they want the bounty? Do they want off the planet? When the machete gets drawn, are they following Santana at that point? What's their plan afterwards? Scour the fucking desert for the cells?
When Riddick, Johns, and Bautista ride out to get the powercells, you'll notice Bautista nudges Johns off the cliff. Not so much "nudges" as "intentionally bumps off." What's Johns's reaction when he sees Bautista again? Doesn't even say a word about it. Guess Johns assumes he's just a shitty rider.
They also state "no weapons for Riddick." Yeah, good call. But the other hulking merc of dubious moral fibre you met a couple days ago, the one with the psycho leader, guns for him. You're trusting him to lead you to the powercells, but not trusting him to shoot aliens instead of you.
Bautista turns on them. He at least waits until Riddick digs up the cells, but he decides to knock out Johns with his gun instead of SHOOTING HIM WITH IT. Just because, I guess.
Then, after their bikes get disabled (one of the laziest plot devices in the movie) and Johns has to go on foot ... he makes it back to the shuttle. WTF? They took some hover-motorcycle gizmos and put a few miles on them to head out and get the cells. The bikes get broken, Riddick gets hurt. That means Johns has to walk the two cells back on foot, through umpteen zillion biscorps, back through the area you just need hoverbikes to get past. Shit, if one dude can make it back on foot, why'd you send out three on bikes?
Also, during the third act, the biscorps become a million percent easier to kill. It's not like Riddick's packing any new weapons, either. He's still got the bone-blade he used to take out the first one, which he only iced after it straight up bit him on the leg and wouldn't let go. As he and Johns run the gauntlet, they have to slice and blast through dozens of these without breaking a sweat. Seriously, wtf? Yeah, Riddick's got someone watching his back now, so +1 there but there's also +100 biscorps. He goes from having to pool all his efforts and energy into getting past a couple to engaging multiple biscorps at once and dispatching them without major injuries ... until the plot calls for him to be hurt again, because the writers apparently wanted to redeem the Johns family name and add the slackest fucking tension they could think of.
It's better than Chronicles but that's not saying much. It's no Pitch Black by any means. Riddick still feels overpowered even though he gets banged up quite a bit. This was about 2/3rds of a movie, and even some of that wasn't worth much. Some of it was at least entertaining, though.
The cast:
No one you've heard of except maybe Bokeem Woodbine and Dave Bautista (MMA dude) playing goons and Katee Sackhoff (non-Dirk Benedict Starbuck) playing the white Michelle Rodriguez goon, complete with an in-your-face lesbian attitude. There's also a former breakdancer, Mark Vincent, who has the prominent role of "dude getting hit on by lesbian."
I'll break this into 3 acts:
1) the dog
The was my favourite part of the flick. Shows how the Necromongers half-assedly fuck him over, leave him for dead, and don't finish him off ... again. There are also the introductions to the local fauna. The major part I hated here was the goddamned hyena-dog which Riddick adopts. Someone remembered the one scene from Chronicles of Riddick when he was in the slam during feeding time and said, "Yeah, we need more of that. WAY more."
A planet devoid of civilized life, full of exceedingly hostile critters and untamed wilderness. Enter Riddick, the hyena-dog whisperer. Fucking may as well have hung a bullseye on its back or named it "Kill Bait." It artificially humanizes him and provides CGI shinies to distract the audience in lieu of a plot or something interesting. And you know it's going to be the fucking thing that gets him caught at some point in the future.
The buildup to killing the bipedal scorpion things (which I will refer to as "biscorps") was cool, although gets cheapened as the film goes on. I also find it hard to believe that pool was blocking the sole and only way to get to where the grass was greener.
Why isn't Riddick keeping supplies of venom to tip his blades with?
2) the mercs
The two parties of mercs that show up ... Jesus Christ, the first was was amateur hour.
Santana has the Bible kid cut the rape doll loose only to snipe her from a distance instead of putting a bullet in her head up close ... why?
Speaking of Santana, what a fucking stupid character. You're almost looking forward to Riddick carving through them when the more interesting mercs arrive -- Big Daddy Johns, Katee, and their crew.
There's a sequence where the dudes are arguing whether or not Riddick doctored the explosive lock. It's semi-hilarious how they all stand around trying to figure who's going to open it. I have vague memories of D&D sessions where we'd argue for ten minutes over which sorry bastard got to open the chest in front of us.
You have to wonder how the fuck Santana ever recruited a crew or commanded respect. His men have to figure out their leader is batshit insane. At one point, Riddick jacks their ships' powercells and is literally the only one on the planet who knows where they are. This doesn't stop Santana from trying to collect on the bounty (double if returned dead). His attitude doesn't change when there's a legion of biscorps that marches on their position. Big Daddy Johns, seeing reason, starts undoing the chains on Riddick. Santana's men get the jump on Johns's and he tries again. I cannot fathom why anyone in that room is trying to kill their only ticket off the planet.
It's at about here where the writing goes off the tracks.
3) the escape
There are a number of things in this act that give me pause. Someone phoned this part of the script in, possibly holding their real writers hostage.
Santana's death is so over the top, it's comedic. On the flip side, you have to remember his men are implicitly supporting his actions because they have guns drawn on the dudes trying to stop him. Their reactions just make no fucking sense. Do they want the bounty? Do they want off the planet? When the machete gets drawn, are they following Santana at that point? What's their plan afterwards? Scour the fucking desert for the cells?
When Riddick, Johns, and Bautista ride out to get the powercells, you'll notice Bautista nudges Johns off the cliff. Not so much "nudges" as "intentionally bumps off." What's Johns's reaction when he sees Bautista again? Doesn't even say a word about it. Guess Johns assumes he's just a shitty rider.
They also state "no weapons for Riddick." Yeah, good call. But the other hulking merc of dubious moral fibre you met a couple days ago, the one with the psycho leader, guns for him. You're trusting him to lead you to the powercells, but not trusting him to shoot aliens instead of you.
Bautista turns on them. He at least waits until Riddick digs up the cells, but he decides to knock out Johns with his gun instead of SHOOTING HIM WITH IT. Just because, I guess.
Then, after their bikes get disabled (one of the laziest plot devices in the movie) and Johns has to go on foot ... he makes it back to the shuttle. WTF? They took some hover-motorcycle gizmos and put a few miles on them to head out and get the cells. The bikes get broken, Riddick gets hurt. That means Johns has to walk the two cells back on foot, through umpteen zillion biscorps, back through the area you just need hoverbikes to get past. Shit, if one dude can make it back on foot, why'd you send out three on bikes?
Also, during the third act, the biscorps become a million percent easier to kill. It's not like Riddick's packing any new weapons, either. He's still got the bone-blade he used to take out the first one, which he only iced after it straight up bit him on the leg and wouldn't let go. As he and Johns run the gauntlet, they have to slice and blast through dozens of these without breaking a sweat. Seriously, wtf? Yeah, Riddick's got someone watching his back now, so +1 there but there's also +100 biscorps. He goes from having to pool all his efforts and energy into getting past a couple to engaging multiple biscorps at once and dispatching them without major injuries ... until the plot calls for him to be hurt again, because the writers apparently wanted to redeem the Johns family name and add the slackest fucking tension they could think of.
It's better than Chronicles but that's not saying much. It's no Pitch Black by any means. Riddick still feels overpowered even though he gets banged up quite a bit. This was about 2/3rds of a movie, and even some of that wasn't worth much. Some of it was at least entertaining, though.